Friday: A Review

Few people in full-time education or employment would dispute that Friday is by and large the most enjoyable day of the working week. This particular Friday is enhanced no end by the presence of both sunshine and blossoms on trees, both of which tend to send me into a Maria von Trapp state of mind.

A typical Friday may involve a more cheerful air to the journey to your place of work/study, a friendlier aspect than usual to the faces of your fellow commuters, a spring in your step at the thought of the approaching weekend. Sod it, I'll pick up a cappuccino on the way in after all. Then when you get to your destination even your colleagues may well have a readier smile than on other days, and nearly every conversation will include the question "doing anything nice this weekend?"

Friday is the most popluar day to take off work, a fact I find quite baffling. If Friday is the best day of the week, Monday is almost universally acknowledged as being by some distance the worst, and it would seem to me to be blindingly obvious that if you're going to use some of your precious holiday allowance it might as well be on a day that you hate rather than one that's often quite good. There are few more pleasurable experiences than turning off the alarm clock on a Monday morning and turning over for another hour's kip.

But I digress. The typical Friday, with its stock phrases ("so glad it's Friday", "have a good weekend") is ehanced by the likelihood of someone suggesting you go to the pub for lunch and the one-in-a-million chance the boss will have fit of goodwill and suggest you all knock off half an hour early.

All this leads up to the best moment of the day - some might say of the whole week - which for me is at 5.30pm but which for others will simply be whatever time they knock off work/get let out of class. The absolute end of the working week, every minute of the weekend stretching out before you, the prospect of Friday night (in the pub, at the movies, in front of the TV) ahead.

Friday night itself is well-known as being girls'/lads' (delete as applicable) night, when you're free to go out with your mates without repercussions from your other half (if applicable), drink a bit too much and stay out a bit too late without having to worry about getting up early in the morning. Friday nights are often a bit impromptu, resulting in no-one having big expectations and a commensurately greater amount of fun being had by all.

Friday: 9/10 - the only problem with it is having to be at work in the first place.


By the way, in the interests of fair play, I must admit to having filched this idea wholesale from the highly original Everything Reviewed.